THE FARMER’S WIFE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1116, 9 June 1883, Page 3

THE FARMER’S WIFE.

There are several leading departments which, by common consent, are relegated to the sphere of the wife, says a writer in the Cultivator. Embraced in her special department is the management of the household expenses, and, unless dairying is made the chief business of the farm, she has usually the entire care of the dairy. A story is told of one of the eaily pioneers in a new country, who, with his wife, commenced farming on a tract of 100 acres of wild land, only partially paid for. Year after year they prospered, the 100 acres were paid for, in large part, by the hard-earned money which the wife had secured through the sales of butter and cheese. Again and again the question was asked by the husband, “ Shall I buy another hundred acres ?” and the answer by his good wife was always ready, and always the same : *‘ Get me 15 more cows and you may safely buy the land.” When in their old age a fine farm of 500 acres was fully paid for, the wife could rightfully boast that it was her labor, quite ss much as that'of her husband, which had paid for their broad acres. The power which a farmer’s wife may exercise in the domestic economies of the farm carries with it manyresponsibilities.lt is her dutyin every way to fit herself to become a judicious helpmeet and counsellor. The farmer’s club meeting should bo open to the wife and daughter, as well as to the farmer and son. Not infrequently the little improvements made at trifling expense, through the influence of the wife a taste and tact, add more to the value and attractiveness of the home than many times the money cost invested under the husband’s management. In all the suggestions as to making farm life attractive to young men there is none better than to enlist the hearty co-operation of their mothers and sisters They will point out to the youth the ideal and aesthetic side of the farmer’s work, while if he learns farming wholly from his father he is apt to learn it only as a life of prosy and poorly-paid toil.